


you don't have to go it alone

by SerenNoir



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Daycare, Gen, Kid Fic, Kid!Fic, OT5 Friendship, kid!direction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 15:45:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerenNoir/pseuds/SerenNoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The first time Karen sets Liam down in Wee Little Tots Preschool and Daycare Center he screams so shrilly the only other toddler in the room, a ruddy-faced boy with big, blue eyes, claps his hands over his ears and winces dramatically."</p>
<p>toddler!direction all attend the same daycare class, become quick friends, and are basically a handful</p>
            </blockquote>





	you don't have to go it alone

**Author's Note:**

> the only thing I should be worrying about is RN boards in ten days, but here I am writing daycare kid!fic. when can I get off this one direction carousel? 
> 
> anyway, ages: louis is 4, zayn is 4, liam and niall are both 3, and baby!Harry is 1.
> 
> toddler!speak killed brain cells so forgive me for it. unbeta'ed for now, but I'm thinking of making this into a series

The first time Karen sets Liam down in Wee Little Tots Preschool and Daycare Center he screams so shrilly the only other toddler in the room, a ruddy-faced boy with big, blue eyes, claps his hands over his ears and winces dramatically.

Liam scrambles at his mom's legs, sobbing and snotty-faced already. "Ol me! Ol meee!" but his mom ignores him in favor of speaking to the daycare teacher.

She does lay a comforting hand on his head though, carding her fingers through his hair. Normally, it's enough to comfort him, but not this time. Something's wrong and he doesn't know how to communicate that to make her understand so he stomps his feet and screams instead.

"Liam is a good boy. He's quite sweet," he hears his mom say and if he wasn't in such distress, he'd preen at those words.

"Ol me mommy. Pick up!" Liam begs one more time, but instead his mom kneels down until she's in his direct line of sight. He puts both sweaty palms against her cheeks and cries in her face.

"Liam, honey, let go of mommy. This is Miss Kay; she's your teacher. She's going to play with you, and you'll learn a lot of fun things." She pulls his little fingers off her face and holds them in front of her which only serves to make Liam sob harder. Momma only uses that tone of voice when she's leaving to go somewhere and he can't come along. "Now be a big boy like we talked about. I love you, Li. Mommy has to go to work, but I'll come back to get you this afternoon."

Liam can see her own eyes are watery through the haze of his tears. This is the worst day of his life. Worse than when he dropped his cheese stick on the floor seconds after Nicola handed it to him and then told him it was the last one. He did promise he would be a big boy this morning while he was eating his Fruity Pebbles even if he didn't realize he was agreeing to _this_ at the time. Cautiously, he pulls his hand from his mom's and grabs a couple fingers of the new lady, sniffing loudly.

"There's my darling," his mom says fondly before standing and ruffling his hair one final time before disappearing out the classroom door.

He feels her loss almost immediately, cutting through his three year old tantrum. Not knowing what else to do, Liam sits right down on the carpet and takes in his surroundings. Miss Kay says something about blocks before walking off and leaving Liam to observe. The room is painted in bright colors, he recognizes red and yellow, and the walls are lined with buckets and bins of toys. He'll get to those later definitely.

The other boy is watching him warily, one hand still covering one ear in case Liam decides to start screaming again. His cheeks are really red and although it looks different and weird to Liam, he doesn't look mean.

"Niall, would you like to build blocks with Liam?" Miss Kay says softly, dumping a bag of Mega Bloks on the floor in front of where Liam is still sitting.

"Yes!" the boy called Niall exclaims. There's a bright smile on his face that calms Liam. He wipes hard at his wet eyes and shuffles forward on his knees to play with Niall, who is already stacking a tower. He tries to reach for one near Niall's hand and accidentally touches the other boy's wrist as he does so. He jerks back when Niall grabs his fingers suddenly. Maybe he was wrong; what if Niall isn't nice? Liam feels like crying again. Instead, Niall places a green (is it green?) block in his hand.

"You play too! We build towa tall, tall, tall!"

His eyes are so big and his cheeks are so flushed that Liam smiles tentatively back. Niall is so happy so Liam can be happy, too. He stacks the green block on the very top as Niall whoops triumphantly.

* * *

 

Two more boys join the class in the time it takes Niall and him to build six towers and topple over approximately six of them. There's an older boy wearing a blue jean jacket with a matching pageboy hat with the sort of mischievous expression Liam recognizes that gets him in time-out most of the time at his own house. He's not keen on upsetting Miss Kay just yet so gives the boy, Louis he overhears, a wide berth.

The second kid is closer to Liam's age with dark hair and even darker eyelashes that resemble his sister's, Ruth. He's barely awake, eyes blinking sleepily at the ground with his hand still clutched loosely in his dad's. He has his thumb shoved in his mouth. Liam curls his hand into a fist to fight the urge to do the same. Secretly, he still sucks his thumb but will vehemently deny it if asked. He promised he would be a big boy today after all and thumb-sucking is for babies.

"Liam, Niall, Louis, this is Zayn. You can still play with the blocks until we start learning colors," Miss Kay says after all the parents have left. "Remember to share and use manners, now." Niall immediately hands over a block to each boy.

"Towa tall! A mean fiwa-breafin' dragon gon' smash it!"

Louis giggles and squats next to Niall to help complete his tower. Liam scoots closer to the middle of the block pile where Zayn is trying to fit two upside down together.

"Dey go dis way," Liam whispers, turning Zayn's hands the right way. His eyebrows draw together for a moment before the blocks slide onto one another perfectly.

"Oh," he says simply, grabbing a few more and stacking them off the sides of the first.

"Dis one's gween," Liam points out, trying to add it to the top of Zayn's mini tower.

He allows it but scowls. "I know what gween is," he argues.

Liam pauses. Zayn is not as nice as Niall, but he's also a little like Ruth when Liam wakes her up from her nap too early. Liam's learned some people are just grumpy in the morning and resolves to play with Zayn more later when his eyes aren't red-rimmed and he isn't still sucking his thumb.

* * *

 

Learning colors is frustrating.

Liam knows red, yellow, and green, but "blue" and "purple" stumps him. No matter how much he tilts his head and squints, they still look the same. Miss Kay calls on him and while he's pondering the correct answer to an obvious trick question, Louis shouts "Blue!". He hates Louis.

"Give Liam a turn to answer Louis, dear," Miss Kay admonishes sweetly.

"I know all my colors already. I'm four." Louis is puffing his chest proudly.

Liam never wants to be four. Four year olds are mean.

Miss Kay holds up another color card. "What's this, Liam?"

He stares at it. It might be "purple"; it's not bright like yellow or pretty like red. He seeks out his lower lip with sharp little teeth and rubs one of his eyebrows hard. Niall is sitting next to him, still smiling, and it gives him courage for the second time that day to answer.

"Purple," he says softly, frightened he's not right.

"Very good, Liam. That is purple!"

Liam sighs out loud. He is way too little to feel this stressed.

"Good job, you did good!" Louis shouts, practically beaming at Liam, which only makes him really conflicted. Maybe he'll only hate Louis sometimes.

When it's all said and done, he knows more of his colors than Niall and Zayn keeps shouting "Pink!" to every card and giggling obnoxiously loud afterwards.

* * *

 

Miss Kay passes out gummie snacks and sippie cups full of juice at snack time. Louis declares he hates grape and swaps for Zayn's apple juice when he's not looking. Zayn, who is bright-eyed and bushytailed at this point, makes hilarious noises with his mouth that has Liam cackling so hard he's honestly afraid he's going to tinkle his big boy pants. They're sat at the smallest table Liam has ever seen with chairs that he doesn't even have to climb up into like at home. Niall spends five minutes picking up one of the chairs and setting it back down just because he can.

"No sharing cups, boys!" Miss Kay reminds them again, even though they're pretty much just passing all the cups around in a circle till they're empty. "And no biting, Niall!" Liam thinks Louis probably deserved to be bit going for Niall's gummies like that.

There's a knock at the classroom door and Miss Kay goes to answer it, looking a little overwhelmed with snack time. An older teacher steps into the room, carrying a boy quite a bit younger than them. He has a head full of light brown curls and Liam thinks he looks like a puppy and says as much out loud. The baby grins at him around his yellow binkie and waves his arms wildly.

"Harry wants to play with the older boys, if that's ok. We've been lonely by ourselves in the nursery, haven't we Harry, dear?" the older teacher explains, bouncing Harry on her hip.

"Of course he can. My, he is a cutie, isn't he?" Miss Kay coos, smiling brightly.

Liam leaves his seat to sit on the floor, legs stretched out long as the older teacher places Harry down on the floor. Harry flexes his stubby fingers against the carpet for a moment before crawling quickly straight towards Liam. Before he really has time to get ready, Liam's got a lap full of heavy baby. Harry pulls himself up impossibly close to his face, mouth grinning so wide around his pacifier it nearly topples out.

"Hi, Harry. My name's Lee-yum." His pokes a finger gently into one fat cheek and in retaliation, Harry fists a handful of Liam's hair.

"Ow, ow, ow," he giggles. It doesn't exactly hurt, but it does pretty good at immobilizing him so Harry can do whatever he wants, which currently means: slobber all over his forehead with messy, open-mouthed kisses.

The other boys have knelt down around the two of them, laughing and carrying on jovially.

"He's sweet. We should keep 'im in here with us," Louis states, petting Harry's hair affectionately.

"He can be our wittle brother," Niall assents, helping Zayn tickle Harry around his ribs.

Liam falls back onto the carpet, making sure Harry doesn't head-butt him on the way down. The baby scoots forward until he's practically sitting on Liam's neck and busies himself with palming the different parts of Liam's face. He's okay with a little brother; all he has is stinky big sisters anyway.

* * *

 

They spend the next couple hours zipping around the classroom and imagining up scenarios where Harry has been baby-napped by the diabolical villian, Nialler and it's up to The Tough Boys to rescue him.

"It's time to 'cept your de-feet, evil Nialler," Louis hollers, much to the chagrin of Miss Kay who has told him to use his "indoor voice" about thirteen times in the last twenty minutes.  Liam feels a bit sorry for her as she sits slumped over the little table in a chair so small that her head rests easily on her knees. They're not trying to be naughty on purpose, but it gets hard to remember the rules when Louis is charging around the room chasing Niall and filling the small classroom with bright, happy laughter.

Zayn throws himself dramatically to the carpet and grasps Harry's tiny hands and pretends to drag him to safety. Niall cackles on the other side, tugging the baby's little feet so that he is gently slid backwards on his tummy across the carpet.

"Noooo, 'arry, 'old onnn," Zayn says, laughing as Harry's little fingers desperately try to stay connected with Zayn's. Liam doubts Harry understands the game, but the attention has him squealing in joy nonetheless.

"Boys, be careful with him. He is smaller than you so you must be careful not to hurt him," Miss Kay reminds them, a tired smile stretched across her mouth.

Liam sits on the floor to catch his breath for a moment, eventually just flopping onto his back and praying none of the other boys accidentally step on his fingers as they rush past. It doesn't take long before he feels the others crowd around.

"'m,tire," he mumbles, rolling over onto his stomach. It feels like the morning has lasted all day and honestly, it's about Liam's naptime.

"We can be tire wiff you," Niall says, curling into Liam's side. Louis lies directly in front of Liam, the tops of their heads brushing.

"I don't wanna play if you're not playin' too," he whispers, patting Liam's back sweetly. Liam made a mistake; he doesn't hate Louis at all. It's quiet for a moment before something heavy drops onto his back from above. It's Zayn.

"Zay, you're squishin' me," Liam giggles into the carpet.

"You're muh piwwow. 'arry's gon lay here too," the other boy explains. Liam shrugs and thinks it's not so bad to be a pillow every once in a while. He hears a camera shutter go off and the sound of a woman talking softly, but his eyelids are too heavy and the area around him is so warm from everyone else that Liam doesn't have the willpower to lift his head up and tell Miss Kay he hates pictures.

* * *

 

Liam screams bloody murder when his mommy shows up later that afternoon to pick him up like she promised. She has to reassure him several times that he'll be coming back tomorrow morning and everyone will be here again. Niall is crying, albeit quieter, into his own mom's neck so Liam doesn't feel like too much of a baby. If Niall is sad, he can be sad, too.

Zayn and Louis come up in turns to hug him tightly around the neck. Even Harry slobbers all over his cheek in goodbye before his mom straps him down in his carseat. His tummy feels like it's full of air and he can't stop smiling so hard through his tears that his eyes crinkle.

They wave at each other from their cars in the parking lot and Liam spends the entire ride home delightfully replaying his day to his momma and when she asks how many friends he's made, he smiles wide and says, "Four!"

 


End file.
